A Beautiful Blue Death

Her strength was in the integrity of her actions; she never compromised what she believed she ought to do.

...It had been a perfect nap -- the sort a man runs into now and again by chance...

the boredom of childhood is different, richer and more special than the boredom of adulthood,

He had done well as the mint’s director, a job in which he worked hard—apparently, according to most people, because he so loved the material of his labor: namely, money.

He was currently the director of the Royal Mint, a position once held by Sir Isaac Newton, which explained why he had begun to buy the physicist’s possessions at recent auctions.

What bliss was there to compare to a warm fire, fresh socks, and buttered toast on a cold day!

When I woke up. I saw what an insidious, awful person my cousin was—truly was— for the first time. I felt such sorrow, then. It’s no excuse, none; but it’s the truth.

Made our parents enemies. That was the reason Eustace and I first became close. We hated him.

What happened then, we know. They planned to murder Soames, under the favorable condition of a ball, which adds confusion to any incident, and with the false lead of the valuable object in Barnard’s house, which would divert any detective

He hates the feeling of inequality that was instilled in him by his rich uncle.

I disregard your profession as sheer nonsense, particularly for a man of your birth, sir, if I am to speak plainly.

Barnard protested at first, arguing that his own presence in the house, as an officer of the mint, surely constituted protection. The very fact that we had chosen his house, after the attacks on the mint, seemed proof to him.

know all these things. But don’t become black inside. You may think you’re left with nothing, but you still have your memories of her, and you have time. Sorrow is all very well but, as the church says, darkness never lasts, and light always comes. Even when it doesn’t seem so, my boy.

It could be cowardice or compassion; he cared little what it was called. It was in him, and that was all.

If I ever turn to crime, Exeter, I shall do better than that, I assure you.

Why would anyone kill Prue Smith, if not for love or money? To keep her quiet.

Henry, explain to me how the servants were stationed tonight. It seems absurdly dangerous for someone to commit a murder here if there were servants coming up and down the stairs all the time.

It is! For us to have such conservative values, values that would have constrained our most revered

They’re like rabbits, you know. They keep multiplying. Every time you think they’re gone, another six of them jump out and ask what you think about some horrible scarf or hat or something. It’s absolutely harrowing.

Lenox had been to the Rookery on cases. It was no place to be caught even in broad daylight: narrow streets with tenements on either side; a foul smell mixed with sulfurous coal of people who couldn’t wash and lived close together; prostitutes in threadbare dresses laughing ostentatiously and offering their business, while they sipped penny pints of gin; gangs of children roaming here and there, picking pockets

I daresay. I ask you, what sort of man thinks that spying consists of standing in the hallway in front of one’s damn bedroom? About as subtle as a slosh on the head with a stick.

seek no glory, no riches, nor any of the like, you see, and I don’t mind a bit of collaboration, if the situation calls for it.

Exeter was the sort of man who had joined the Yard partly for power and partly because of a sense of duty, but never because it was his true vocation.

myself would have made a point of seeing which other people left the room, if I knew that this sort of insulting suspicion were going to be directed at me.

When you find out what Miss Smith was like, Graham, be sure to find out whether she was exotic or mysterious or anything like that. And what those words mean.

He and Lady Jane ignored that separation, but most men spoke very little with women except at parties, and were most comfortable playing a hand of cards or smoking a cigar with their friends, a kind of solidarity encouraged in grammar school, public school, and university, all of which excluded women.

But the Dials wasn’t the worst part of London in Lenox’s opinion; that was the Rookery, by Bainbridge Street in East London. The vices here were drink and cruelty. The vices there were theft and prostitution.

He thought guiltily that he was glad he could afford—literally—not to put up with a man like Barnard. If only Exeter had been slightly more intelligent. . . . But then, he thought, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Lenox found Graham to be almost perfect in this unique role: honest, respectful but never toadying, willing to make a point that might disagree with his employer’s—always, in short, his own man. Of all the men he knew, he thought Graham among the finest.

Someone wrote this with their own pen and left it here. Notice the small squiggly letters— probably somebody trying to hide their handwriting. Forger’s tremor.